SYNOPSIS: Spacefaring researchers disturb an ancient horror. An enchanted object curses a grieving widow. A haunted reel torments a film student. A murder trial hinges on a chilling testimony.
In Howls From Hell, sixteen emerging horror writers pave the way for the future of the genre. Fans of dark and macabre fiction will savor this exhibition of all-original tales born from one of the fastest-growing horror communities in the world: HOWL Society. With a foreword by Grady Hendrix, this anthology unveils the horror writers of tomorrow. I got a copy of this anthology early in exchange for a review, and I'm SO glad I took them up on that. This book is fantastic (and illustrated!) and I've added several new names to my keep-an-eye-out list. ((I did join the HOWL Society discord not too long ago, but haven't really posted yet, because 80 million things to do + ADHD = what do you mean I haven't done anything except scroll Twitter today. Anyway, moving on)) I liked just about every story in here, but my particular standouts are She's Taken Away, Gooseberry Bramble, Red and the Beast, It Gets in Your Eyes, and Junco Creek. The intro is perfect. Look at this: "Horror is always about families, sometimes biological, as in V.C. Andrews, but mostly found. ... Every band of scrappy heroes standing down a zombie apocalypse, every group of parapsychologists investigating a haunted house, every motley gang of vampire hunters or creepy flock of vampires form a family." Thanks, Grady, now I'm all emotional. <3 Quotes/Lines (spoilers below!) A CASUAL ENCOUNTER -- 'Younger men want to call all the shots, and women of any age are much too wary, so I tend to stick to older guys.' Okay, serial killer or traditional monster? -- Question answered. EEEEEK THE PIGEON LIED -- 1) great title 2) the illustration for this one!!! -- I love the Hell/demons twist on the mob feel to this -- "I haven't looked forward to something so much since I convinced Jenny to write her damned book to kick off the anti-vaxxers! The Horsemen and I still get a kick out of the reemergence of smallpox." PFFFFFFT -- 'Definitely Wayworth's goons. A slight red glow escaped around the edges of their Ray-Bans. Hellhounds, not normal goons.' Nice. -- The manager just getting the hell out of Dodge is perfect. MANUFACTURED GOD -- Futuristic humans exploring ancient Egypt? *heart eyes* -- "Is this going to be on our exam?" Some things never change. -- Berry, you dumbass, do not poke at the probably-just-sleeping god -- 'A strong, undeniable desire to flee, to escape, consumed her. It overpowered the fantasies of promotions, of money, of talks, and travel to other colonies for lectures.' LISTEN TO IT -- "Leave him. He's dead weight now," hissed the student in her ear, and she both hated him and was thankful to him that he had made this decision for her.' Berry, you're an ass, and Gab, you're not much better (you do realize that him making the decision doesn't absolve you from going along with it?) RED PUNCH BUGGY -- THAT is a weird response to an accident. -- This guy is gonna pass out behind the wheel and kill somebody. -- 'I know bumper stickers say 'motorcycles are everywhere' but, rather than engendering sympathy, it makes them sound like cockroaches, an infestation in dire need of a pesticide holocaust.' ...um. You okay there, buddy? -- And the winner of 'creepiest workplace award' goes to... SHE'S TAKEN AWAY -- AE: "Maybe it's not a dysfunctional brain. Maybe she's finally revealed her true self. There could be a bunch of things she's done that we've yet to discover." JML: "Why are you smiling?" AE: "I didn't mean to. I don't know. Smiling, I guess, to keep the tears away?" If this guy had any sense at all he'd be backing away slowly (or very, very quickly) right now -- AE: "It was only me who saw it, though. Whenever we were at school or in front of our parents, she always acted normal. She only revealed that side of her to me. No one else." The doctor is 110% dumbass. ((also, even the *mention* of electroshock... I love the idea in this story that the set-in-stone 'we're helping these people by hurting them' mindset can keep people from seeing what's right in front of them)) SUSPENDED IN LIGHT -- 'Yet here she was, her own image displayed before her, on a film shot eighty years before her birth.' NOPE. Run please -- 'His eyes brightened until they were so blinding she had to turn away. When she finally looked again, beams of light projected from his sockets onto the wall behind her. He hummed like a machine, the sound spilling from his fully agape mouth.' Hello mental image I will never be able to unsee GOOSEBERRY BRAMBLE -- "Seems like no matter what I say, y'all got yer sights set on Mr. Ramblewood over there fer the deaths a them dozen children. But I might jest change yer minds, so listen close.' That is certainly one hell of a story setup. -- Aaaaaaand there goes my appetite forever. -- 'I was due fer a whuppin. But if y'all think she scolded me or spanked my bottom somethin' raw, then yer wrong. My grandmammy wrapped her slender arms round me an squeezed me tight- like if she let me go I might melt away.' God, his poor grandma. Realizing that he was gone and where he'd gone to and believing she'd never see him again... CLEMENT & SONS -- 'Vines clung to the veranda like a kraken engulfing a ship.' Love this line. -- 'She'd finally got her blank slate.' I'm hoping that her son is just grown and moved out, instead of something awful happening to him, too. -- 'Organizing bookshelves always brought her joy.' Same. <3 -- 'Framed photos of David and the boys' Okay, so more than just Michael. Still hoping they're okay. -- "Morning, my love." This is when it's time to RUN LIKE HELL thanks -- 'The closer Lydia floated toward him, the wider his smile grew, stretching to almost unnatural proportions.' nope nope nope -- That ENDING. augh POSSESS AND SERVE ((This one was not for me. I got through it and was a little unsure if it was a satire of the more toxic aspects of policing; if the main character was supposed to be a badass heroine when she struck me as fully "I'm not like OTHER girls"; and either way the relentless nastiness toward fat people left a bad taste in my mouth. Looking through other reviews of this book, I'm in the minority-- several people mention this as one of their favorites. To each their own, but here are my original notes)) -- I love the concept of this! As a story, anyway, in reality it'd be creepy as shit. -- 'What would it be like living this man's life?' ...I'm pretty sure you should've left by now. -- 'It wasn't professional, but it was harmless compared to the guys in the unit who she'd overheard bragging about the 'racks' they'd felt up when assuming control.' 1) yeah, eating something in someone else's body to avoid calories might seem harmless, but what if the guy you're in has an allergy? 2) WHAT THE FUCK on the entire rest of that sentence. They're assaulting people and you haven't told anyone? You just use it as an 'at least I'm not *this* bad' measurement? -- "Whatever you're doing tonight, blow it off. What can be so important on a Wednesday night that you can't go out to dinner with me?" ...Netflix. A nap. Reading tax forms. Watching paint dry. Go away, Mark. -- Yes, your friend Otto is much happier now that he's not-- gasp!-- *chunky*, and the four other women on your team are 'lovely people once you get past the buzz cuts'. Side-eyeing Sarah forever. -- 'The joke wasn't even that funny. But later, when she thought of it, she couldn't help but chuckle.' And now you're "but he's so *confident*, tee-hee!" over Mark? wtf -- 'That's not my dad.' Left a message to explain; smart kid. -- Ohhh shit. Yeah, that whole speech about being proud of your officers' conduct is looking a little off now, huh. -- 'It would be someone else's problem when she relinquished control.' Yeah, a fifteen year old's problem; please be *careful* -- 'and- her target- his brachial artery' what in the HELL, did you just potentially kill a citizen who called you for help?? I mean, given that I'm typing this while we're waiting for the Chauvin verdict... -- 'The fire alarm would boot them all from their rigs, but that meant admitting she couldn't handle the situation.' You can't! He's stronger and you don't want to risk a fight when you're the one who'll suffer the consequences, fine. He's a thief and a would-be rapist-- who gives a shit if someone thinks you couldn't 'handle it', get him *caught*. -- 'we need to do our due diligence by not assuming his guilt' 'a very serious charge you're leveling' 'you're too emotional' YEP, here they go. -- 'He was a good man. Without his glasses, without the baby fat, he was something else, too. The heart of her old friend, in a body that was taken care of.' I hate everyone in this story. Except Otto, but there's probably going to be a bait-and-switch and he's going to end up the rapist/thief, and then I can add him, too. -- So Otto flips about a million deadbolts and then puts the keys in his pocket. Nope. Nothing suspicious here. -- 'Every value meal I crammed into my gob was a treat that made me fatter, lazier, and more disgusting.' ....sigh -- Yep. There's the wallets. -- 'Something in her head told her to document the evidence and call for backup, but for once she wanted to resolve something on her own.' OH my god. Nobody knows where you are, the door is quadruple-locked...the 'something' is Common Goddamn Sense -- And naturally, Mark saves her. UGH -- 'Sarah breathed heavily for a moment before dropping her guard. "You're going to get a fat lip, pretty boy." "It won't look as bad as that goose egg growing on your forehead, Forrester." I'm just a girl, reading this banter, and reaching for an airsickness bag -- 'Otto ran at her in an injured loping gait, gun dropped. Forgotten. Anger wasn't expressed with bullets. Bullets flew on fear. Anger ripped and tore and strangled. Anger had claws.' Nice line. -- So no complaint from the woman Otto assaulted because they're getting paid off to keep quiet. And Sarah's going to 'get her story straight' and not talk about the groping, or anything that Otto did. Yay? DUPLICITOUS WINGS -- I'm glad you're not after the kids, but even though your brother sounds like a bit of a dick he didn't...do anything here? He inherited the house you wanted. And his wife definitely didn't have a part in that. -- "She has allowed her husband to dominate and control all he desires." THAT'S what the wife did?? Ma'am. I'm thinking there is a reason your dad didn't leave you the house. -- "I order you to stop! Listen to your master." I really hope the kids don't pay for her being this much of a dumbass. -- "I am evidence ... those poor children are evidence too." **facepalm** -- Alternate title: Why You Don't Get Drunk And Summon A Demon IT GETS IN YOUR EYES -- This is gonna traumatize me, isn't it. I can just tell from the title. -- "Have you been diagnosing yourself on Google?" Oh no, Marnie, bad plan. -- 'I'd never seen Candyman.' *le gasp* -- 'She got off the couch, saying something about buying yellow wallpaper for the bedroom.' *snerk* -- "There are circles of hell more comfortable than this." Ohhh dear. -- AHHHHHHH yep I was right I'm traumatized noooo RED AND THE BEAST -- Ooooh, Little Red Riding Hood themed horror story -- 'Red responded with her own roar, smaller but just as primal.' I love her. -- "Oh, come on, Beauty," an elder woman said. "Just look at him! A strong man. Your father isn't coming back. You'll need some protection." "Forget it! You're all useless!" Fairy tale mashup hell yesssss -- "Never had she beheld such a beautiful woman.' *Lesbian* fairy tale mashup???? -- "Nonsense. I think they're big enough to share." There's only one bed trope! This was written for me. -- The moving furniture is super-creepy in this and I approve. -- "Your father? ... Well, you'll have to crawl onto that serving platter to replace him." OH MY GOD THE INTRUDER -- 'Cars, trucks, motorbikes, and streetlights consolidate into a galactic communal mishmash of glowing rush-hour traffic.' I hope you're not currently driving. -- 'I shook my head violently--what the fuck am I doing?' I am asking the same question -- 'I speed clear, seeing tiny, grey, wiggling maggots erupting from its mouth like liquified television static spilling out of a screen.' 1) great imagery, 2) EW SPROUT -- 'When my right testicle popped, I think that's when I realized how serious the situation was.' We have a winner in the opening sentence contest. -- 'I hardly ate. Food bored me. The memory of her sustained me.' Sir? You okay there? -- 'The flower in her hair seemed to angle toward me as she turned, a cobra bobbing its head hypnotically.' Poison Ivy? -- "And now you have taken from us. Eaten from us." She smiled. "And now you cannot leave." Someone hadn't read his Persephone myth. Not that it would've helped him, really. Yikes JUNCO CREEK -- (have I mentioned how much I love these illustrations?) -- Ohhh, Leigh. :( -- I'm glad Ben agreed to come with her on this trip and listen; that's a tough situation for the kid to be in. -- I don't care if you're the owner of the cabin, sir, you're approaching a woman and her son alone in an isolated area and it's CREEPY -- Stalker owl! -- Mmmm, s'mores. Must run to store soon. -- "But I'm still your mother. I'm still here for you." "You're not really," he said. "Not how I need you to be." "How do you need me to be?" "Like you were." OW. -- "A bear?" "Yes, but don't worry. They rarely attack people." Yeah, no, I've seen The Edge. I'm *gone* -- Oh SHIT Ben, that is brave as hell -- Yeah, the car breaks down and the owner just happens to be there to drive you to the hospital. Flee A FISTFUL OF MURDER -- This scenario is creepy af -- I am not reading that paragraph NOPE poor fish -- Dude. Burn the goddamn money, *quick*
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SYNOPSIS: Tananarive Due, a winner of the American Book Award and an Essence and Los Angeles Times bestselling author, brings you her debut short fiction collection! The title novella, Ghost Summer, won a Kindred Award from the Carl Brandon Society (originally published in The Ancestors). This collection includes Patient Zero, The Lake, The Knowing, Herd Immunity, and many other stories.
This book is such an amazing, perfect way to kick off Women in Horror Month. My favorites are the ones set in Gracetown, but none of the stories left me with a 'meh' reaction. ((special mention to Free Jim's Mine, because I started that one, had to get the kids to bed, and then woke up the next morning having somehow sprained my wrist. Couldn't write notes on it, but I *had* to finish it anyway and then read it aloud to anyone who'd hold still long enough)) There's a theme running throughout so many of the stories of children forced to grow up before their time, sometimes to the point of parenting the adults in their lives. The kids in these stories, god; I love all of them. Quotes/Lines (spoilers below!) THE LAKE -- Abbie is very much striking me as the 'too much money and too little sense' type. Who drops $150,000 on a house on a whim?? -- 'But there would be boys at the school, strong and tireless boys, who could help her mend what needed fixing. In her experience, there were always willing boys.' UM. This is setting off creeper-bells. -- 'In retrospect, she was foolish. But in all fairness, how could she have known?' There's just a subtle skin-prickling wariness to the tone of this story that I love. -- 'No rows of desks would mar her classroom' *how do you do, fellow kids gif* -- Dismissing the girls immediately and being way too studious of the boys. The way she's thinking about Derek-- he is sixteen. He's a kid. Hire a goddamn contractor like the rest of us lady -- oh no he's fifteen even worse -- "But you know, Derek, it's easy for people to get the wrong idea if you say you're going to a teacher's house..." His face was bright red now. "Oh, I wouldn't say nothing. I mean...anything." RED ALERT HELL NO I HAVE READ 'GIFT OF FEAR' THIS IS GOING NOWHERE GOOD this kid better make it through okay i stg -- "It's all right if you don't have trunks," she said. "My back yard is private, and there's no harm in friends taking a swim." Where's a gator when you need one -- 'That was what she and Mary Kay had always believed. Anyone who thought differently was just being politically correct. In ancient times, or in other cultures, a boy Jack's age would already have a wife, a child of his own.' The hell is wrong with you?? Is your friend Mary Kay Letourneau? -- HOLY SHIT IT IS -- oh god this ending. GAH. **full-body shudder** SUMMER -- 'Grandmother had passed three summers ago after a stroke in her garden, and now that she was gone, Danielle had a thousand and one questions for her. The lost questions hurt the most.' My grandma passed from Alzheimer's last year, and the truth in this. -- 'Danielle wasn't sure if she was patient and wise, or if she was a tragedy unfolding slowly, one hot summer day at a time.' This LINE. -- 'The baby's legs banged against the crib railings, but Danielle knew her wailing was only for show. Lola was thirteen months old and a liar already.' ...okay, you absolutely need some help before you do something unforgivable. That is PPD rearing its ugly head. -- So her husband suspects she might have it, but she's determined she's too strong for such a thing to affect her. That's such a common, awful trap. -- "Only a fool would buy one of those plots." I love connected short stories. -- *thank you* for calling Odetta. Also hooray for horrifying mental imagery that will never go away, I have never been more glad that my kids are past infancy -- "I bet there's some folks who see it as a blessing in disguise, even if they'd never say so." I had PPD, and I would have. Ohhh, this is gonna unsettle me for *days*. Just picture me holding the book at arm's length as I keep reading. GHOST SUMMER -- 'Later, Davie would wonder why he hadn't realized right then that something was very, very wrong. Had known, maybe, but hadn't wanted to.' Poor kiddo. -- 'Not 'Mommy', he reminded himself. He was twelve years old now. He was going to middle school in the fall, and he'd heard enough nightmarish stories about middle school to know that if any of the other kids heard him call his mother Mommy, he'd come home with a bloody nose every day.' He's not wrong. Middle school = hell on earth -- 'Watching, Davie remembered that Dad hadn't always been a grown man. He'd been a little boy once, just like him, and he looked like a boy again, clinging to his mother in a way he always warned Davie not to cling to Mommy. Mom.' I'm fascinated by whatever ghosts he's looking forward to seeing, of course, but even without the supernatural elements, the human narrative here, this little boy navigating his way to adulthood, is just captivating. -- 'Ignorance was the only mercy he could still do for them.' Bless his little heart he's trying so hard and needs a hug -- 'Neema wasn't just a ghost hunter-- Neema, it turned out, was a kamikaze.' I love this kid too. -- 'She knows, Davie realized. She wants to know if I know too.' *sound of my heart shattering into a million pieces* -- 'But he lay that shotgun on his shoulder and walked away. That's the part everyone forgets.' I'm gonna cry -- 'The secret weighed heavier with each passing moment. But the Timmons boys carried it. They were stronger than anyone could have imagined.' Babies what happened to you oh god -- 'If the three boys weren't hurting, they wouldn't be trying so hard to be heard. But Neema didn't need to have that spelled out. Like all ghosts, they just wanted their story known.' <3 -- "This one time Davie. I need you to grow up very fucking fast." THIS IS NOT GOOD FOR MY HEART RATE -- 'Combined, their feet sounded like an army, and Davie hoped they were.' FREE JIM'S MINE -- so this was where I sprained my wrist and took no notes but just know this story absolutely kicked my ass and it's amazing THE KNOWING -- 'I guess she fells like she'll be all right if she just runs away from it, as if you could run away from your own head.' What a situation. :( -- "Mama, it ain't you. Knowing ain't the same as deciding. TV Guide don't decide what's on TV." This kid is amazing. -- "Telling to hurt somebody is the worst thing a person can do. Even the devil couldn't do nothing worse." ... 'I don't think she can help it. I was only six when she did it to me' Oh look all my sympathy for the mom just evaporated -- 'When you grow up around someone like Mama and you hear about it all the time, you know everybody has a turn, and you just try and find something interesting every day to make you glad it hasn't happened yet.' Ohhh, hon. That's so mature and a position you never should've been put in. I wish you could've stayed with Rosa. LIKE DAUGHTER -- 'So, yes, I understood why Neecy needed looking after. No one else was doing it.' This entire situation is infuriating and heartbreaking. -- 'Neither of them had learned, after two divorces, that people can't be applied to wounds like gauze.' DAMN. AFTERMOON -- werewolf story ahhhhhhhh -- "How did you know about me?" "The music. If you didn't have the genes, all you'd hear was Muzak." Worldbuilding adoration ahoy. (also the doctor's sense of humor is perfect) TRIAL DAY -- 'Bernadette never said these things aloud like an evil stepmother in a fairy tale, but she didn't have to. Letitia knew words were only part of who people were, and usually the least important part.' *fills out adoption papers for yet another fictional child* -- No wonder he shrank in her eyes. Also, the sheer toxicity of her father's relationship... -- "This is one o' them times you got a choice, Letitia. You can do what you want and hope things don't turn out wrong, or you can do what you know will make things right." 1) that is a hell of a line 2) I had a cat named Midnight so I'm just gonna skim from this point on thanks -- OH thank goodness -- 'The sound of that purring engine as it drove away was as sweet as the memory of Daddy's laughter with Brother on the porch that night.' my goddamn HEART help PATIENT ZERO -- 'But Veronica told me the NFL people had a meeting and decided not to have football anymore' This story is going to hit SO hard right now isn't it -- 'I've been staring at my Dan Marino picture all day, and I think the handwriting on the autograph looks like Dr. Ben's. But I'm afraid to ask anyone about that.' Ohhhh kid. -- "People are giving it to each other. They don't usually know they're sick for two weeks, and by then they've passed it to a lot of other people." ...so when was this written again -- Just the little hints of how *badly* things are falling apart outside, brrrrrrr -- 'She said it was the security code for my door. She said she wanted to give the code to me because my buzzer wasn't working, and I might need to leave my room if she overslept and nobody came to bring me food.' This amazing woman, trying to give him comfort and normalcy as best she can. DANGER WORD -- ZOMBIES!! ((normally not my thing, but at this point I would buy a copy of a restaurant menu if Tananarive Due wrote it so I am curious)) -- 'He'd done what he had to do to save the boy, then shut the memories away where they couldn't sneak into his dreams. Then drank enough to make the dreams blurry.' I love you so much sir -- 'Daddy, she'd called him. She hadn't called him that in years.' Oh okay so this is going to be a multiple-tissues story -- His love and practicality with this kid even when he knows the worst is coming I *cannot*. Also going to pick up the two YA zombie novels she mentions in the afterword; neverending TBR list! REMOVAL ORDER -- oh NO not fleas visible like that. We had a regular at the donut shop and you could see the fleas crawling on his white socks when he came up to the counter. -- My grandma was fortunate to never get bedsores, but all the rest of this, having to move her and her screaming in pain and just not understanding why any of it was happening... worst memories. -- 'A gunshot exploded inside the house.' Yeah, I thought that was what he was going to do. Jesus. HERD IMMUNITY -- 'He left a trail of candy wrappers. Chocolate bars mostly, always the minis.' My apocalypse counterpart. -- "People who were careful," he said.' Yeahhh, because everyone else who got sick just wasn't as dedicated to their safety as you are. Jackass. -- Taking the stuffed elephant from the fair, bless -- Ohhhh, I don't want to know what's inside the Rescue Center please do not open the door thanks. -- 'Make sure everyone in your party takes a full cup. Parents, watch your children drink before drinking yourself.' oh god no -- 'Kyle slept on as Nayima pressed her lips to his.' WHAT the HELL. He SAID he wanted you to stay back. No still means no in the middle of the apocalypse, lady-- and what if he actually did get lucky instead of being naturally immune? Slim chance, but not for you to decide. -- 'By dawn, Nayima awoke to the sound of his retching. ... Nausea came first. Nausea came fast.' oh christ, this was told in such a sweet way, trying to find connection in a destroyed world, but really you stalked and murdered a man. Go to hell. -- 'The man didn't turn to look at her as she stood over him and picked through his things.' Go to hell *faster*. Also, I like how he's back to being 'the man' instead of Kyle or someone you absolutely 'can't' live without now that you ignored his explicit wishes and killed him. CARRIERS -- 'Naymia's sleep had turned restless as she aged' Oh, so happy to see you got to have a long life, asshole -- 'She fired once into the dark and hoped she'd hit him. Fucking cats.' I remember you being so happy to see Tango after your grandmother was killed. Is that part of you entirely gone, after everything you went through and everything you *did*? -- ...she named one of her pet cats Tango. I am feeling things against my will here -- 'Of course he did. Toys and gadgets. That was Raul.' Yeah, god forbid the guy like the read, or remember his family and happier times and want to talk about them. Just awful. -- 'She jacked a shell into the chamber. "You could've shot me before I did all that work," Raul said.' Pffffft. -- "She doesn't have one," he said. "What?" "Nobody bothered to name her. In the records, she's called Specimen 120."' noooo, poor baby -- 'Makeup had yet to make a comeback, except the enhanced red lips favored by both men and women. Full of life.' I love this little worldbuilding snippet. -- 'the anecdote about her extracted tooth violated guidelines' Oh, well, we obviously can't have THAT. I wouldn't go anywhere near that place either. -- 'dear Jesus, this angel had Gram's nose and plump, cheerful cheeks' **cries** SENORA SUERTE -- You seem pleasant. Eesh. -- I love the story of how this piece came about. VANISHINGS -- 'A mother should see it first, not last.' So much denial and pain, all through this story. SYNOPSIS:
The second book in an epic series of twenty-six horror anthologies. Within these pages you will find a collection of thirteen stories from some of the finest independent writers on the scene today. From oversized bugs to Kaiju, vicious woodland creatures to giant spiders, B is for Beasts contains a range of terrifying stories in which the humans are always the prey. I love the concept behind this series: an entire alphabet of creepiness, so you can pick and choose whichever subjects are your favorites. Animal-themed horror is a particular weakness of mine, so this was an easy first choice. And there are a couple of creepy illustrations, which is always a plus. My favorites: Jack; Night at Maddy's Motel; Waiting for Daylight; Pholcidae; and Angels on Mountaintops. Quotes/Lines: ((spoilers below!)) MOMMA'S RATTLE: -- 'Her hair looked flat, her once effervescent skin was pale, and her eyes dull. Was this even the Lucy he had first met? Tyler felt a bit of himself feel disgusted that this was who he was married to.' I'm currently rooting for whatever tied you up in that cave, jsyk. -- 'Tyler's favorite game was to walk into the bar and look for the girl who was talking to a guy. Tyler would then spend the evening winning that girl, while the poor loser watched. It isn't enough to win, Tyler had realized; you need to make sure someone else loses.' Your poor, poor wife. I hope she remarries well and soon after you get eaten. ((okay, turns out this was premarriage. Guy's still scum.)) -- 'All that changed when the twins came.' I stg if he's one of those 'wahh, my wife isn't hot anymore and doesn't give me all of her attention now that we have kids' guys... -- OMFG it's even worse she has postpartum and he resents her for it and is now cheating on her in the age-old guise of 'business trip'. Die slow. -- 'The cave grew larger and escape was nearly in his grasp when his feet caught something on the cave floor.' I am pleased -- 'Why would she let me go?' Same question. -- Ugh, of course you'd figure out a way to take your wife and kids with you, you ass. BABY'S GONE -- So this lady gave birth alone, then cleans up the lunch dishes for her husband and kid, and then makes supper for when they get home? **skeptical face** -- 'And there was blood, a lot of blood, coating the wet clothes in the basket, Jamie's blanket, and the grass around the clothesline.' Nooooo REPTILE AT THE CROSSROADS -- 'Accustomed, as everyone was, to the unmoving monstrosity, Mary Jo had bravely stepped over the serpent to enter the schoolhouse and do her job-- only to lose the baby, and by the looks of it, her mind, the very next day.' Poor thing!! ((and the scene with her coming into the store... *shudder*)) -- "It ain't gonna get you, Beck." Why was he whispering? Because he doesn't believe it, but is willing to risk you as long as he doesn't have to deal with a baby. -- 'She knew her baby was gone- and so was whatever she felt for Gerald. He might as well not be there at all.' Good. -- NO WAIT NOT GOOD AHHHHHH MRS. RUMTIFUSEL'S FUR COAT -- Salem Halloween Street Fair? I'm in. -- 'If that doesn't work, there's always the five-fingered discount!' You're pleasant. -- I love the Museum of Oddities. Would absolutely work there. -- "Shut up, Michael! Now I said price isn't an issue, Mrs. Cutler, so how much?" Mrs. Cutler stared at Susan and then smiled for the very first time. "You must have it back before sundown." You're gonna dieeeeeee -- YEEEK. JACK -- "Maybe some evenings I could call by..." "Whenever you like," I said. "Will you have a bite to eat now you're here?" Well, one thing led to another. By the end of the year, we were married.' Aw, they're cute. This is going to end terribly. -- 'He could redecorate and redesign every room in the house, I said, take whatever space he needed for himself. Only the annexe was off-limits.' How very Bluebeard. -- This is such a strange, sad, and unique scenario. -- 'I decorated the inside with flowered wallpaper and hid the window bars with curtains.' That line says so much. These poor kids. -- 'What had possessed me, my mind screamed, to imagine I could share my life with both?' Oh Chloe. KAIJU -- 'He never meant to hit Reika, not really, but after noticing another dried speck of egg yolk on one of the dishes, Toshiro backhanded her with enough force to make her nose bleed.' Die soon, and die horribly. -- 'Like the kaiju itself, Toshiro also hated human beings.' Shock. Surprise. -- 'How was he supposed to work under these conditions?' noooo not the whine of misunderstood "artists" everywhere -- 'What kind of animatronic puppet bleeds red ink?' UGH -- 'Surely, she would still recognize him despite his monstrous appearance. Reika wouldn't run away from him in fear like the others.' Dammit leave your poor wife alone you've put her through enough. -- 'Perhaps, he thought, stepping back from the apartment, he deserved this punishment. He was once, after all, a a monster in human form who tormented his wife with violence and viciousness. Nothing much had changed except for his size.' Fact. STORMFRONT -- Sympathies, Connie, bad sunburns are the WORST. -- "No." Connie put a hand to one hip. "We paid in advance and don't have anywhere else to go for the next several days." "We are closing." She mustered up her best poker face. "Not my problem." ...Karen? -- "Look, I haven't had a chance to even mind out what's going on. I don't speak the language." Of course you don't. -- Hitchcock would be proud. NIGHT AT MADDY'S MOTEL -- 'This man had a face as pinched as a puckered penis and a body as warped as a lightning-blasted tree. His skin looked desiccated, his eyes bulged as if he'd caught the Pope masturbating, and his hair-backed hands resembled something found dead in a forest.' WHAT a description. -- It was time to kick shit over the stinking life he'd been leading out of no more than habit or, maybe, a perverse and misplaced sense of stubbornness.' If you weren't in a book like this one, I'd think you might make it. -- 'He was about to pull into the car park but something indefinable wormed its way into his mind, something trouble and desperate, urging him to drive on.' I love this. WAITING FOR DAYLIGHT -- 'Having survived World War 1, he'd seen his share of death, and knew more than he cared to about fear. He was confident this was their last night on Earth.' Ouch. Also, the Alaskan setting is automatic 30 Days of Night/The Thing isolation-horror vibes. <3 -- 'As beautiful as they were, there'd been an instinctual fear from the beginning, like a brightly-colored serpent warning people not to bother it.' -- 'Poor Ardor Hammond had been left lying on the pier.' Poor nothing; he should've let those who wanted to leave go. -- 'Returning, he turned out one lantern and gave a silent prayer, asking to die as best he could. He just hoped it would be quick. Several of the corpses had held horrified looks on their faces-- the ones who hadn't been relieved of their heads.' O____o WOOD FOOKS -- "Come here, my pretty." The bloody farmer is greeting it. "What have you brought me?" I'm thinking you should've found a Holiday Inn, guys. -- 'Then I climb inside the remains of the farmer to disguise myself. THe carnage is warm and sticky. I pull his skull over my head.' ooookay there Ed Gein yikes PHOLCIDAE -- 'The Platts took him in, James and Haman, fathers already to little Abigail.' <3 <3 <3 -- 'Amos could talk to them. The dogs and cats and especially the goats, who loved him best of all. Even the chickens, a little.' That's a heck of a talent. -- I love this kid and this is not gonna end well :( -- 'And Amos went home that night with ruination tucked painstakingly into his satchel for safekeeping.' -- 'The town was already found of the young couple with their twin girls- now they fell in love.' Cheer at your coronation and also your beheading, etc. -- 'They did sleep at daytime, but they woke up when the little ones peered into the pit.' No no no no -- 'So much anguish can hinge on a split second's misfortune or miscalculation. The nudge that veers life off-course can be so small that it makes a mockery of order; the falling rock, the moment's murderous passion, the weakness of sleep when one is supposed to be watchful.' That's an incredible paragraph. -- 'Does every monster's father know, in some lockbox in his soul, that it will all come to a reckoning?' -- Esther was right. Amez had brought the sun with him wherever he went. Now, that little sun was extinguished, gone forever down a dark hole of cobwebs and shadows because of Amos's carelessness. Because he had invited danger into his home and danger had struck not him, but an innocent.' -- 'attacked by my stock, terrible accident, so sorry, come talk to me about recompense-' Leaving his body for his parents to find? Writing a note? Recompense? AMOS. -- 'A split second's thought--are they in my mind? Are they changing me?--then it was stifled.' O_o -- 'We both have blood on us, she wrote, get rid of those murderous animals. Come join me. My sister has room. It's not too late yet to be clean again.' Awww, Esther. -- 'The pholcidae felt his mind go and cried out in mourning for him.' Poor little things; they're just what they are. I hate Rigel, though. ROSEBUD COTTAGE -- 'The music, alongside the popping and crackling of logs on the fire, almost drowned out the gut-wrenching sounds coming from beyond the window.' *curious* -- Margaret, I only knew you for a page but I adore you. -- 'Kathy was full of smiles, but Jonathan saw something hiding beyond that, a look in her eyes which could have been a mixture of fear and guilt'. Trust your instincts, buddy. Also, Kathy, you are an asshole. -- Oh good, she's got asshole's address. ANGELS ON MOUNTAINTOPS -- Oooh, summer-camp scary story! -- 'better safe than lawsuit' Pfffft. -- 'I shook my head, suppressing a grin. "Miranda has a roll of toilet paper. No itchy butts for anyone." The girls giggled. No matter how old they got, at least butt jokes were still funny.' Awww, kiddos. <3 -- "You can't keep wandering off like that. You could get lost, or hurt..." She dragged the toe of her boot in the dirt. "I thought I heard the angels. I was going to find them." Oh boy. I'd picked the crazy kid for my group. Fucking fantastic.' You work at a Christian summer camp. She's a little kid. Settle it down. -- "Well, people are trained to make certain associations with different types of insects. They believe that some are good, and others are bad. Like ladybugs are good, and wasps are bad.' That's not belief, wasps' evilness is a well-documented fact. -- "I'm looking for them. If I find the angels, they'll take me to my parents. We can be together again." Oh sweetie. -- Hi, Riley needs a punishment harsher than just saying her name sternly after that shit. -- 'Next year, I was picking a different group.' Or you could tell Riley's parents that she's not welcome back. -- Awww, Amber telling campfire stories about Mothman. <3 -- You just let kids go off looking for a missing child right after your tent was destroyed by an unknown person/animal? Because they have twine to guide them back? Worst. Counselor. Ever. -- 'This kid didn't need camp, she needed a therapist.' I have decided to fully commit to hating you. -- 'She looked stricken. She took two steps backwards, her lower lip trembling. "I'm sorry, Sammy. I didn't mean it, I--" She didn't wait to hear the rest. She turned and ran.' I repeat- worst counselor ever. -- ((also wtf actually happened to Abby?)) SYNOPSIS:
Each year, people all over the world celebrate special festivals and days, shining light on what they wish to remember and revere. But sometimes, inhabitants of the dark arrive with the desire to disturb proceedings. Dark Celebrations is a collection of twelve short stories... and the holidays will never be the same. I had nothing but good things to say about Demmer's previous collection, The Sea Was a Fair Master, so I'm not surprised that I loved this one, too. I love themed story collections, especially if a group of unrelated ones somehow all tie together at the end. There's not one in here that I regret reading or found boring, but my standout favorites are Hungry Ghosts, Trick or Death, Three Dead Men, Dying Valentine, and She Will Rise. Quotes/Lines: ((spoilers below!)) HUNGRY GHOSTS -- 'Ten Tips for Surviving the Hungry Ghost Festival' ...I love this already. The list is creepy as hell (8: Do not swim. Drowned evil ghosts seek victims for their rebirth.' brrrrrrrr) -- "That's why the old guy alongside the road fumed with anger when you knocked over the bowl of food. It was for the ghosts. You should've just apologized." Ahhhh, so Ray is a dick. Good to know. -- 'Before the stage were a few rows of empty seats cordoned off from the public. Apparently, they reserved seats for any ghosts who wanted to catch the performance.' I love this. -- "Come out, little critter," Lara said to the bush as she kneeled.' Lara. Lara no. ((and I say this as somebody who would absolutely do the same thing because I am a dumbass about animals)) -- 'Slowly, something seemed to be coming up from beneath the surface.' Time to haul ass, guys -- 'Ray had also grown more curious and crouched down onto his knees, pushing his head between two beams of the wooden railing.' All the better for something to decapitate you... -- 'Instead, she turned and pointed at the bushes, straight at Lara.' NOPE. TIME TO SPONTANEOUSLY LEARN HOW TO FLY LABOR DAY HUNT: -- 'Two hundred dollars cash for two hours' work, according to the ad he had seen.' *alarm bells go off* -- "We're going to serve some people a meal. Nothing to it, really, and I sure do appreciate you helping me out." This guy has absolutely got a copy of To Serve Man in his pocket RUN -- 'Jared hadn't even realized there was a back entrance until Tim pushed a huge dumpster away, revealing two green steel doors.' Sweetie. Your survival instincts. You've got to have a couple somewhere, right? Right?! -- 'There was a thick red substance in the bowls, reminding Jared of homemade tomato soup.' JARED. The Frog brothers would be so disappointed in you. -- Ohhhh, I like where this went! -- 'He stopped when he saw a piece of flesh stuck on the edge of the pipe lying on the floor. Peering closer through his narrow view, he realized what it was. His right eye was looking up at him.' AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH -- "Good, you're alive," Tim said. "Oh yeah, I cut off your arm." omfg. TRICK OR DEATH: -- "I'm sorry, Miss Grady. I'm shooting some footage for my YouTube channel. Is it cool if I use your reaction?" "Um, well, okay, but wait," Miss Grady said. Her face had returned to its normal color. "I think I swore. Did I swear? You can't use it if I did." I love this lady. Now quit being a dumbass, kid, you're lucky you didn't give the poor woman a heart attack. -- 'Polly screamed, punching in his direction. The blow hit Barry on the right cheek.' Serves you right. -- "Miss Cutler, it was a little prank. It's a video for my channel. Would you mind if I use your reaction?" Punch him again, Polly, I don't think the first one took. -- 'He tried the handle. Unlocked.' You are gonna get *shot*. -- Okay, or worse. O_____o THANKS SINNING: -- Lucy Fern? Yeahhh, *that* name doesn't have any ominous connotations. ;) -- moving tattoos eeeeeeeek -- "It's not a drug. It's natural. Been around for ages." SAME WITH HEMLOCK WTF ARE YOU DOING c'mon kid no one-night stand is worth this THREE DEAD MEN: -- Yes, you should absolutely call your parents and tell them you can't find your uncle stop investigating places alone -- "You must get out now." Her uncle banged on the door. "Run, Maiko. Run and get help" And then Maiko proceeds to argue for several paragraphs. This is not how you survive a horror story. -- So head shots work with zombies *and* mummies, good to know. ;) -- Maiko! <3 Going after mummies with a garden fork, I love you. -- "I doubt that telling your parents what happened would be a great idea." Understatement of the year... HAPPY DARK YEAR: -- 'Kendall hadn't moved. Guilt tugged at him, but he ignored it. SHe would be fine. Everyoene knew Roy, who ran the motel, and he was an okay guy. Kendall would surely ask him fora lift to the party once she accepted how immature she had acted. ... Kendall would be fine.' ....I do not like this foreshadowing AT ALL. -- "Well, Hannah. You found the right man. I know the perfect place." I'm guessing she's a succubus who's going to eat you and you deserve it, Mr. 'repressing the thought that he had a girlfriend'. ((and the place he takes her is one of Kendall's favorites? UGH.)) -- 'The panic crawled throughout his limbs like a million tiny newborn spiders.' Line <3 DYING VALENTINE: -- 'Daniel Hill's musky cologne permeated the interior of his car. He had doubled his usual amount when applying the fragrance.' Ohhhh, your poor date. -- "Please get up," Daniel muttered. "Please, please get up." The woman didn't move.' :( -- "Here," he said. "Let me help you." "You've done enough. Now back the fuck up." Completely understandable, ma'am. -- 'Surely it would all be plain sailing from here.' Oh, kiddo. -- NICE TWIST. And very Elizabeth Bathory. -- oh my GOD that ENDING aughhhhh SPRING OUTBREAK -- Aw, poor Gwen. -- 'She didn't see Hayley. She saw no one.' Oh no no no, the 'everyone else is suddenly gone' is SUCH a creepy trope. -- 'A cooler box sat unattended, filled with drinks. A set of keys lay on one of the towels, along with an expensive smartphone. Farther on, someone had even left a wallet behind.' o__O -- 'He held a severed limb in his right hadn. If not for the colorful butterfly tattoo on the pale blue foot, Gwen might not have realized it was Hayley's leg.' Worst. Vacation. Ever. -- SHARKS. VERSUS. ZOMBIES. Calvin Demmer, ilu -- Nooooooo. I knew it, you can *never* trust the military in a zombie story. SHE WILL RISE: -- 'Her thinning gray hair fell over the side of her face like the spiderwebs Luna recalled from the attic of their first home.' Another nice line! -- 'Sometimes Luna stood before a mirror and imagined herself with different hair and the colorful, eccentric clothes her sister loved, as if that would give her a glimpse of the sibling who should've been.' ;_________; -- 'He had hit her mother once.' *cues up Little Shop of Horrors* The guy sure looks like plant food to me! -- 'The fifth tip is stop any motherfuckers who intend to do you or your family harm.' HELL YESSSSSSS MY GIRLS. PROM SCREAMS: -- "How am I supposed to teach her everything she needs to remember?" She's not a dog, you jackass. Go get eaten by a werewolf or something. -- Have her back by midnight? Some kind of monstrous Cinderella? If so I love -- 'He had been excited for prom all year. Why did his ex have to dump him days before?" No idea, you seem like such a charmer. Who wouldn't want to date someone who refuses to go back for her medication because then he might be late to showing up his ex at prom? -- I love Fay, btw -- 'He was good at communicating, maybe he could speak some sense into this guy.' Kid no BAD idea UNIDENTIFIED FATHERLY OBJECT -- 'On Father's Day, he was going to sneak into the military base outside of town and find out what happened to his dad.' thisisfine.gif -- 'The handle turned, unlocked. It all seemed too easy.' You think??? -- Ohhhh, here's where all the stories get tied together YAY -- 'Fred dug into his backpack and pulled out his uncle's firearm, which he'd liberated before leaving home.' You just get smarter and smarter. -- Well, that's a new take on Mousetrap. Ughhhh. INDEPENDENCE DENIED -- Brad, you'd probably be able to stay awake longer if you ingested something besides beer. -- Ocean creatures! Cthulu mythos, or something else? -- Do NOT go to a warehouse alone because of an anonymous note have you no regard for your own life -- "You are safe now, and once the rest of the world has been cleaned up, we will start a new world, a better world." I would say run, but you kinda lost that chance already, so...have fun with the scary-ass cult, I guess? SYNOPSIS: In this masterpiece follow-up to her critically acclaimed short story collection Cruel Works of Nature, author Gemma Amor winds 11 new, hand-illustrated tales of terror. A true artist of atmosphere and emotional horror, Amor's stories bring readers to the edge and dangles them off.Readers will journey to the depths of hell, go on a daddy-daughter date, learn what's locked in Lee's basement, watch a mother battle postpartum depression, eat the world's messiest birthday cake with Brian, and try to survive in the English countryside during the blitz.
I haven't read Cruel Works of Nature yet (eternally behind, that's me), but reading this just bumped it way up in my queue. The stories here are at turns beautiful and horrifying (sometimes both). I *love* the illustrations; they're unsettling and fit the stories perfectly. And speaking of images, Amor has some really wonderful ones in here (the Devil Kid in 'I Am Ghost' and the man next to the desk in 'Have You Seen My Dog?' spring immediately to mind) The foreword explains that 'Justine' includes rape, abuse, and suicidal ideation. And 'The Strangler' deals with postnatal depression. Very grateful to know this going in. ((and I know that some people think warning for triggers will keep people from reading that work entirely, but Justine turned out to be my favorite of the collection, seconded closely by Caleb)) Quotes/Lines: ((spoilers below!)) HAVE YOU SEEN MY DOG? -- "Are you a Doctor?...But you're a woman." UGH one of these guys. -- 'How cruel old age is, I thought, not for the first time. How cruel, and how indiscriminate.' I don't know if this line would've hit as hard as it did if my grandma wasn't in the late stages of Alzheimer's, but...yeah. -- "No, I don't believe you. I think you know something about my dog." Call for help NOW -- "He's dangerous, be careful," I croaked, rubbing my neck. Linda smiled, unconcerned. "So am I, dear" she said, lifting a giant arm and flexing her bicep.' Everybody needs a Linda. -- Aw, puppy! -- Yeah, that guy needs help and the dog needs a safer home asap. -- would you quit sending Linda away she might be able to help you -- 'Offence being the best form of defence' NOT IN THIS CASE will you at least text Linda so she can come with you or so *anyone* knows where you're going?? -- "Well, you're an idiot, Miriam, and I say that as a friend." Seconded. -- AUGH NOPE NOPE NOPE NIGHTMARES FOREVER -- oh Copper, sweetie. And poor Albert, too. I can't even imagine coming fully back to yourself and realizing *that*. PURE WATER -- "That was years ago!" "You gaffer-taped me to a lamppost dressed as a goat and shaved my bollocks." "It was a stag do! That was the whole point!" "In December." "You survived." I can absolutely picture these two idiots and I love them already. -- do not drink from that wtfffffff JUSTINE -- "Don't say it," Justine interrupts furiously. And so the guy proceeds to say it. *eyeroll* -- At least she has her mom. <3 -- 'She rubs at the skinny, pale scars around her slender wrists and feels the full force of her hate coursing through every tiny capillary in her body. She feels as if it will shoot out of her feet and speed through the earth and put roots down far into the ground, and eventually, instead of a woman, there will be a bitter, black, poison tree around which nothing will grow except thorns and weeds.' -- Ohhhhhhh. On the one hand, a smart strategy, but on the other hand god, her poor mom. -- 'Here lies Uriah Dice, she thinks. But not for long.' Make it worth it, hon. If you can. :( -- 'There are bodies, lining the valley.' The descriptions after this are terrifying. -- 'She is in a forest of silent, hanging corpses, the only living thing in the land of death.' -- 'Justine met Uriah at work, or more specifically, at a work party.' okaaaaay we're getting into flashbacks of what happened and I might end up skimming -- 'She did something she wished every day after that one for the rest of her life that she hadn't. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand...and laughed at him.' Honey, no, none of what happens after this is your fault. More creepy guys at bars should get puked on, honestly. -- 'She packed her things wearily into a plastic crate and made her way down to the underground parking lot' no no no no -- 'CALL ME' ahhhhhh fuck *off* creep -- 'It's a woman's health clinic, with a particular role to serve: that of helping women in trouble. Women like Justine.' No. :( -- 'And she will blame herself.' Why can't I bring you into the real world long enough to hug you -- "This is all your fault," he sobbed. "Yours!" I'd say fuck off and die, but you've succeeded at the second part. God. I hope Justine finds what she needs and gets some kind of finality to all this. I'm gonna need to take a week-long break from reading entirely if this has a sad ending. ((also, the sole flaw I can find in this story is that a lot of description is given to the fact that Uriah is a fat man, and I'm hoping there are fat protagonists later in the book to kinda balance this out)) -- 'She realizes, in retrospect, that Uriah was probably in love with her, in his own, terrible way. Retrospect and hindsight are harmful things, in Justine's mind. They are clubs with which to beat herself when the world turns to black.' -- 'It doesn't matter what she says or what she does, what sentence he is given and for how long he will never, ever accept the truth of his own behavior. In his mind, he is still a boy, and that boy is not to blame. NOT MY FAULT. Suddenly, the words light up like fire in her brain. NOT MY FAULT. Justine swallows, feeling herself fill up with something hot, and powerful, and almost hopeful. It is not my fault, she thinks.' This. Story. From here to the end I was pretty much a crying mess. I AM GHOST -- 'The ritual starts in the bathroom, as many rituals do, with a knife, and a mirror.' ...therapy is sorely needed I think. -- 'Just a simple, clean white bedsheet. One that covers me from head to toe. Memorable, yet faceless. A blank. People don't remember the guy in the sheet. A humble square of fabric. The perfect disguise.' What the hell is he planning to do -- 'I stumble back. My heartbeat slows. The smile is still going. I watch in horror as the top of the kid's head starts to flip backwards like he's a fucking pez dispenser, like someone has cut his head in two with thin, impossibly sharp razor wire' AUGH RAT GIRL -- I thought the illustration for this one would be disturbing af and I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED -- "Why do you have a girl in your basement?! I thought it was a dog or something! No way. I'm not cool with this, Lee!" Lee ignores him, grinning from ear to ear.' Bash this little creep over the head and get her *out* of there, Timmy. I'm having The Girl Next Door flashbacks and if that's the way this story starts going I'm skipping it sorry -- Okay. I can see where, from a child's perspective, Lee might honestly believe he's doing the right thing in protecting her from curious doctors and scientists and the like. He still worries me, and Timmy definitely needs to stay close and supervise and get her out if Lee goes fully awful. -- 'Lee is the exact opposite of Timmy, sure, but Timmy wonders if he really is a bad kid, at heart. Timmy doesn't get a chance to find out, unfortunately. Neither does Lee. What he gets instead, is a shiny black Audi A4 sedan, driving too fast.' oh *shit* -- 'It is a good thing that there is no mirror.' nnnnnnnnnnnnnn MY BEST FRIEND -- 'And I had to eat, didn't I? What else was I supposed to do? Starve down here?' Yiiiiiikes -- 'It could be a goddamned Wendigo for all I knew, or cared.' Foreshadowing?? -- Yep. -- 'They say that mankind has no other natural enemy, no real predator. They are wrong.' This is me never going into a wooded area ever again. HEART OF STONE -- 'As soon as she tells me this, I realize I hate Giles, even if he is only nine years old. I do not want to compete for Jenny's love. Her love belongs only to me.' Yeahhhhhh, gee, I wonder why Jenny's mom left you. -- Oh, and a restraining order? Nice. But of course you still get visitation, because fuck a kid's safety, right? -- 'So sacred, I wish I could turn her to stone, preserve her like this forever.' If anything happens to this poor kid so help me... -- 'I pocket the number, and try to forget about it, for a while. It's too soon after the last one, really. I should space things out a bit.' how many bodies do you have in your basement -- All right, no, Julie is an asshole (though more garden-variety than whatever the hell he is). You don't upset your kid; she can have two jewelry boxes for pete's sake. -- 'and if she was famous, she would belong to everyone, instead of me. I had to do something to protect her from all that. Didn't I?' Well shit. CELL BLOCK B -- "You don't get shoes on death row, McCready." Well, this bad situation just got worse. -- "Warden's coming! Better hide!" Um, yeah, I'd sure as hell say so. -- Are they in hell? Purgatory? -- "I needed to see...inside him. To see if he was like me." eeeeeeeeep A BIRTHDAY CAKE FOR BRIAN -- my only note for this story is 'AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH' THE STRANGLER -- 'Later, someone, a person like you maybe, might call it postnatal depression, but my poor kid, my darling boy, my life and soul, who has no idea what postnatal depression is, doesn't give a shit about that. He is having a full-scale toddler tantrum, which is very normal, healthy developmental thing, or so I'm told. I am not having a healthy, normal reaction to it, however.' .............. -- 'And I don't blame the kid, honestly. Because all he needs is his mother. Objectively, I can see that. I can recognize that. I just can't do anything about it.' I don't remember a whole lot from my daughter's first year of life, but I do remember these feelings. -- 'Because it is so hard to love someone so much whilst failing them with every waking breath, failing them so hard you can barely look yourself in the eye anymore, or anyone else, for that matter.' And here come the waterworks again CALEB -- The poor cat. :( -- 'Apparently splintering glass is more dangerous than the bomb blast itself, or so someone told me. Someone is always telling me something. War is a fertile land for gossip.' -- 'He had dirt on his neck and his fingernails were atrocious, black, and ragged. I swallowed back my disgust and surprise, and pushed him towards the table. City folk, I thought, but kept it to myself.' Orrrr traumatized child? The kid's running from a war zone; I doubt a manicure is high on his list of priorities. -- What kind of creepy-ass cat-murdering rituals is Johnny up to while you're busy judging parents who've sent their son away for his own safety? -- 'Is there curse on my farm? First the cat, then the milk, and now the chickens. Because, you see, two things concern me greatly, in relation to that. A boy, who came on the train, a boy who never talks, not ever, not a single word at all. This all started happening around the time he arrived.' Lady... -- I like the doctor; listen to the doctor. -- "Stay with me," she pleaded, and so of course I did. I put my arm around her and watched as she opened the telegram.' :( -- Ohhhh, so now Johnny is stealing hair from your brush. Yes, this is perfectly normal. RUN PLZ -- "Come out," he said in an odd, quiet voice. "Why won't you come out, darling? It's your Edward. I've come back for you." GET A GUN -- I love the ending of this one!! SYNOPSIS: These are tales of wickedness... stories of evil and cunning, written by today's women you should fear. Includes tales from Kelley Armstong, Rachel Caine and Sherrilyn Kenyon, writing in their own bestselling universes.
Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery will take the classic tropes of tales of witchcraft and infuse them with fresh, feminist perspective and present-day concerns--even if they're set in the past. These witches might be monstrous, or they might be heroes, depending on their own definitions. Even the kind hostess with the candy cottage thought of herself as the hero of her own story. After all, a woman's gotta eat. Bring out your dread. The lineup in this anthology is not to be BELIEVED. So many authors I already love and some I'd been meaning to read. And there are a couple of short stories set in larger universes that I haven't gotten into yet, so that was a nice preview. Thank you, Night Worms! <3 My favorites: Widows' Walk Home: A Morganville Vampires Story The Deer Wife Bless Your Heart Last Stop on Route Nine Haint Me Too Gold Among the Black How to Become a Witch-Queen Honorable mention to The Night Nurse, which was amazingly well-done but I am never reading it again because it got into PPD a little too well. Quotes/Lines: ((spoilers below!)) AN INVITATION TO A BURNING -- Lovely opening paragraph. -- "And if I were a witch, and here you are alone with me, with no matches in sight, what do you think would happen then?" I approve of your sass, Sage. -- I love the feeling of connection and found family in this ritual. WIDOW'S WALK -- 'Once only Martha lived there but the others gradually shifted into it as husbands shuffled off mortal coils, either naturally or otherwise.' WHAT A LINE. -- Oh Chelsea, poor kid. -- 'She's old enough to understand that her position is one of shame; not because of the theft so much as being a child whose parents cannot feed them adequately. The shame isn't hers, but she still feels it, suffers for it on her mother's behalf.' :( -- "Your penance will be to come here for breakfast before school every weekday. And after school, there will be chores." ... "Until your debt is worked off or you're no longer hungry." I love them. -- "Who should take Mr. Landreneau?" "Me. I love a bully," says Eugenie. **pledging fealty to all these badass ladies** -- "Now, now, girl. If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all." Virginia where were you when I was in middle school -- DAMN, Eugenie. Not screwing around at all. I love it. -- Ohhhh. Have I mentioned how wonderful Angela Slatter's stuff is? Because yes. I haven't found a story of hers yet that I haven't loved. BLACK MAGIC MOMMA: AN OTHERWORLD STORY -- "I don't believe you are aware of what you possess, Miss Levine." Yep, totally am. But go ahead and explain it to me anyway.' Heh. I like her. -- "That's Tiffany. She's a total bitch." "Savannah..." "Sorry, Mom. I should roll up the window before I call her that." I adore this child and will definitely look into this series. -- 'Once Dora surrenders-- well, the third time she surrenders, the first two being fake-outs, which I expect' I love the fighters-who-respect-each-other's-tactics trope. -- I love you lady behind the counter please do not die for trying to help. -- I really like Dora. I hope she shows up in the series more. THE NIGHT NURSE -- 'Two year olds, constitutionally, are passive-aggressive. It's literally a hallmark of their personalities.' Yep. -- 'and then socks, always socks! No one could ever find, match, or put on their own socks!' TRUTH. -- 'Esme had tried to befriend these women, but they happened to be the same kinds of women who read Eat, Pray, Love and considered Love, Actually the best movie of all time. They were lovely women who would raise lovely children and Esme had nothing in common with them.' *checks author credit* Get out of my head, Sarah Langan -- 'So she got up and held the baby. Offered her breast, which the baby bit, tearing up the scab that had just healed. "I don't want you," she cooed sweetly, because babies don't understand English.' Yeahhhh, that is not a good sign. -- 'Spencer threw fits when she was late, which it turns out is normal for a two-year-old, but somehow unacceptable at a preschool for two-year-olds.' Right??? -- "Oh. Should I cram this baby I'm holding back in my vagina?" she asked. YOW. YOU TELL 'EM. Also, poor Esme. I'm getting secondhand stress/memories of my own PPD just from reading this. -- The ointment concerns me, and I do not trust Wendy one bit. Esme should have a proper support system, not a do-nothing husband and a woman she met at a museum who I'm pretty sure bewitched her somehow. The whole 'oh, I'll work with you on payment' just means the price will be WAY too high. -- 'She got the text from Mike that he'd be coming home late. He had this pattern since they'd started having kids. He stayed away util they were sleep-trained.' Fuck you, Mike. If the Night Nurse really is some kind of monster hopefully she'll eat you. -- "You can't have my references because you're not my employer." Liking Wendy a little more now. Get that asshole. -- 'Wendy smiled at the baby and she smiled more at Esme, like she mattered. Like she was a person who could be seen.' Oh, honey. You need help, and what got into your house because your husband's an unsupportive ass? (please don't let anything happen to her or those kids) -- 'The next day Mike slept in because it was Saturday and he was tired.' And she isn't?? -- "It's voodoo," Marlene whispered. "I can smell it on the children. You're marked." UM. -- "Can you feed him? I left a bottle," she asked Mike. Mike popped a last beer, and answered like he'd only vaguely heard. "Sure." She'd been through this before. Sure meant absolutely not, but she decided to let it play out.' My hatred for Mike is bright and unending. -- Wendy keeps ignoring her when she suggests it's time to leave oh nooooo -- Oh my GOD these judgmental preschool dipshits. "I trust you'll give me my money back. A false accusation of child abuse is a big deal. I can't imagine you'll keep your accreditation if I sue." GET 'EM ESME. -- 'Ritah's mom asked Esme to babysit. "You realize I'm drowning and you've never once offered to watch Lucy, right?" MY GIRL, there you go. Now do Mike. -- Ask Marlene for help!! She might know what to do. It's not going to be as easy as throwing stuff away. -- Oh no. No, no no. That is the stuff of nightmares I cannot handle this. THE MEMORIES OF TREES -- ...please be a more lighthearted one I need it after that. -- 'The Faithful intended to hang the child at dusk.' Oh, well then. Okay. -- I have read two more paragraphs and I want every one of the Faithful to die slowly and horribly. -- The more things change, huh? -- 'Our weapons are older, stronger,' the trees responded. 'We will not let you fall, little one.' <3 -- 'Elder Barrow's expression didn't waver, except to allow a tiny, almost imperceptible smile.' Looking forward to your brutal death. -- 'We spared the children, who ran away into the woods. Little Ellena had asked for that, and we obliged.' Good on you, kid. HOME: A MORGANVILLE VAMPIRES STORY -- "Way to waste your blood donations," Shane said, and nodded at the cuts that had opened up in Oliver's hand.' A vampire getting pissy that someone's opening a rival coffeeshop across the street? I love it. -- 'He had a family to protect, not just from the random hunger pangs of some nightstalker, but from the things even the vampires feared.' oooooh. *curious about this series* -- "If you draw that stupid thing, I'm going to have to refuse service," Jane said. "And cook that arm for my dinner. Oh, who am I kidding. I'll feed it to the cat." Yikes? -- Shane you dumbass -- Fluffy vampire bunny slippers? Myrnin, I adore you. -- "If I'd found you gadding about, I'd have burned you on the spot, Myrnin." Shane felt a chill, because Oliver's voice was no longer cool. It was vicious, and completely serious.' So he acts like that even now, and used to murder witches? ...let Jane have him. -- "Pot, kettle," Shane muttered, and she at least pretended not to hear, which was good, because he liked his internal organs on the inside.' *snerk* -- "Do you like my new familiar? I thought he'd be useful. Oliver seemed concerned for his safety. Unusual. He normally doesn't care about the mayflies." okay that is creepy -- "Hundreds of thousands of innocents slaughtered to find a handful of genuine threats. Isn't that right, sugar?" "Yes," Amelie said quietly. "But that began before my time, or Oliver's." "You took up the cause happily enough." "It's what we were taught," Oliver said. "Is that what you want to hear? An apology for that?" "Oh no, sweetie. I'm not here for your regret. I'm here for your blood." ngl I'm still kinda on Jane's side here -- "Back away from me, boy." "Or what?" Michael, you do not seem to have much common sense. -- "Don't offer up your blood for him." "I'm not. I'm offering it up for this town. There are a lot of innocents here. You talked about how many were killed to get to you, right? I'd like to avoid that here." ...please don't die -- "Tell your friends how I died, Oliver." "The times were different," he said. what did you DO you asshole -- ...go straight to hell Oliver, wtf -- "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. Take us home, my love." Awwwww. -- "Even for Morganville, that was weird." I'm buying all of these books. THE DEER WIFE -- 'She has killed those who cross her. She has scared men to death. If you're out in the woods at night and you hear her song, it'll be the last sound you ever know. But the stories, they're all half-truths.' This is a beautiful piece so far; I love these women and their relationship. -- ...sorry, if he was gonna get drunk and violent then he had it coming. Hope the kid's not showing the same tendencies; if he starts in then get the hell out of Dodge. -- Okay, fuck him forever for even trying that. Get out, Julie. -- *heart eyes* THE DANCER -- "They don't mean it." Mrs. Weaver smiled at Baker, you know how children exaggerate.' Ugh. -- "Oh, you don't need to tell this part," Mrs. Weaver said, staring at her shoes. Poor Ani. She and her brother need parents who give a shit about them instead of maintaining appearances. -- "We are a family, Mr. Baker. We're going to live as one." Even if it means tying up your kid?? -- "Ani, if you come with me, I will bring you to Burlington and find a place for you for the night." Bless you. -- 'The repercussions of taking Ani wouldn't be slight, but Baker had a good lawyer, and he wasn't afraid. This wasn't the first time.' Hello yes I would like an entire series of Baker being an epic badass and getting abused kids out of bad situations. -- ...okay I didn't see that coming. BLESS YOUR HEART -- The first paragraph of this just kicked my anxiety into overdrive. PTA politics, noooo -- 'It was the end of church for her. It would have been the end of the entire town if she could have swung it.' I love you. ((please let her son be okay)) -- "Well, you know how kids can be--" he started.' Kill him. -- "Eh, a few of them were involved" "the bully's not a *bad* kid" fuuuuuuck youuuuuu -- Oh, Tuck, sweetheart. -- 'Isolating a gay kid in a red county...she knew how that went. He'd end up broken, running off, or dead. And I ain't losing my boy.' I love you, agree with you, and will provide an alibi if necessary. ((seriously, she's not brushing this off or thinking 'oh, he just has to get through this and he'll be fine'; she knows and flat-out acknowledges how bad this can get without sugar-coating it in her own head and that is So Important)) -- "Not the time, Audrey! Not the damned time, all right?" Should've listened sooner, asshole. -- The. Last. Line. THE DEBT -- oh shit, that paragraph about the one time she ever wore a dress. -- 'hopeful that the reason her dad had suddenly been so eager to take her to the country of his birth was because he wanted to rekindle the warmth they had lost.' *looks at story title* *looks at theme of anthology* Yeah I doubt it. -- Baba Yaga reference yesssss -- If you did this to your little girl on purpose I swear -- "This settles your debt." Your debt might be settled with her but now I get to kill you, them's the rules. TOIL & TROUBLE: A DARK-HUNTER HELLCHASER STORY -- Without her...humans are screwed. Sounds about right. -- "Not the most original of prophecies, is it?" "Nay. Seems as if patricide be the crime of the hour. How very gauche." I like how this started all formal and then went full snark. -- I like Eeri a lot; she's actually giving the people who want help honesty. She's still *trying*. (I can see the witches' cynicism, being ageless and all, but...yeah.) Also, instead of them letting Eeri go and asking her to apprentice of her own free will, they keep her as a slave and have the gall to think her 'treacherous'? You're lucky she hasn't played steal-the-eyeball. -- okay so that's definitely the same creeper in disguise RUN -- "But you judged your sisters for your crimes and for that you are damned." Wait, what? Those weren't her sisters; they were her owners. She panicked and ran after being directly threatened, how is that damnation material?? And I just looked her up on Kenyon's website and her character profile still says 'slave', just apparently to a demon or somesuch now? No thanks. (I haven't read anything else in the series; if I misread something here or Eeri does get a happy ending, please DM me on Twitter and let me know!) LAST STOP ON ROUTE NINE -- "My dad got locked up here," Kai said. "He said that place was just a bunch of rednecks who hurt kids for fun. And he said Gracetown is haunted as shit." Poor kid. I'd be twitchy around there, too. -- So the grandma sent him to a creepy 'Reformatory' and then said he needed therapy as an insult when he didn't bounce back all happy-cheery afterwards? What a sweet lady. -- "What if we get pulled over? And I get locked up for no reason like him?" Oh honey. Why can't I do battle with this society and win dammit -- "There's a house. I'm just going to knock on the door and ask for directions." NO -- "That's crazy!" Kai said. "Haven't you ever seen Deliverance?" Listen to the kid please and thanks -- 'She still remembered a black woman's name: Renisha McBride. And there were others. But she also wasn't going to let fear rule her life. It was broad daylight. She was lost. She was dressed for church. She would be fine.' No no no no live in fear for just the next five minutes please -- "Lock up behind me. I'll be right back." oh no not The Words -- 'Then Charlotte noticed the Confederate flag' DRIIIIIIVE -- worry about the car later just GO -- well shit -- "We didn't!" Kai screamed at her. "Someone hit us!" "Kai...calm down. Breathe." No, Kai is showing exactly as much panic as the situation requires, do not get out of the...you're getting out of the car, aren't you. -- 'Kai's gratitude vanished, replaced by bitter fright. "You still don't get it!" True. Don't get me wrong, I want Charlotte to get out of there but it's so much worse for Kai because he's a kid and he's trying So Damn Hard to get her to LISTEN and she won't, and she's not going to be the only one to pay if this really goes south. -- "I have to see if he got thrown." OH MY GOD LADY. -- "Tell him...what? He won't believe you." "Yeah, he will," Kai said, sure of it.' I think I'd like Harry a lot. WHERE RELICS GO TO DREAM AND DIE -- "If you had it all to do over again, how would you want to die?" Well THERE'S an opener. -- The spirit in the candle flame (and how it got there) is both nicely done and Utterly Terrifying -- "You've been affable company these years." ... "Thank you," she said. "So have you." <3 <3 <3 -- "While you slept I took from you all that I need to make a child of our own." Um. They knew each other and loved each other and he pretty much just willingly died for her but that is still kinda disturbing. THIS SKIN -- 'I didn't have to introduce myself. He already knew who I was. What he didn't know was I was prepared to tell him everything. As soon as it had happened, I'd known I wanted to tell someone. What was the point of doing it if no one knew it was you?' o___O -- AUGHHHHHH -- okay that was just a full-body shudder of a story HAINT ME TOO -- 'She didn't like work and she didn't want to be in the house with those mean kids. They were always doing things to hurt her. She wanted to tell her parents, but she knew that it would just make them upset. They couldn't do anything about it. That was just how it was.' *rooting for the haint to eat the family* -- "Those pots from upstairs need chucking out back, Our Nig." ...die -- 'Somehow, they often reminded her, this wasn't slavery-- that had ended forty years before. No, this was sharecropping.' I need a time machine and a flamethrower. -- 'Somehow the family never remembered her name. Her parents had given her a name but it must have been too hard to remember.' Oh sweetie, no, don't give them even that much benefit of the doubt they're just assholes -- Okay these kids can go straight to hell -- "Business. You know a few years ago you wouldn't have even known the word." *flames on the side of my face gif* -- "I will not die as a free woman running from these men." She walked into the house, grabbed the rifle off the mantel, and came back out. "I won't leave you." Hello yes I would die for you just thought you should know -- 'White people did not like ghosts, Shea reasoned, because they were not controllable. They didn't like Negro women ghosts because they were angry.' godDAMN what a line -- I haven't read any of Burke's stuff before and what the hell, self. Shame. THE NEKROLOG -- 'I seem to recall an urgent, whispered conversation with Dad when she discovered a birth certificate stamped with a six-pointed star. I was told never to mention this to anyone and Mom's look was so serious, so desperate, that I never did.' ..... -- 'I don't blame them. Only they didn't let me hold her in the end.' Ummmm. Your kid is not dead -- 'But I was told they had died and I was an orphan and all this was for my own good. They didn't indulge my grief. We were all grief-stricken.' GO MAGNETO ON THESE ASSHATS, GIRLS -- 'We learned to love one another. This was the first thing though it wasn't what they intended to teach us.' *found family feelings, send help* GOLD AMONG THE BLACK -- I have now adopted Greta and Jesper and nothing bad is ever allowed to happen to either of them. -- 'She preferred to stay with him even if it meant sleeping in the forest.' This darling. -- 'But Liesl wouldn't stop. "They say that dog is your familiar and he can change shapes." Hell. No. I see where this might be going and it's not allowed. -- <3 HOW TO BECOME A WITCH-QUEEN -- 'The list of things queens cannot say is a long one, and you have not said them for most of your life.' -- 'If you had been given a choice, you would have stayed in the forest with the dwarves--or the huntsman.' Snow White adaptation!! *love for this story immediately increases tenfold* -- 'It is tiresome to ask permission, but you have had to ask permission from men all your life-- your father, your husband. Only in the forest were you free.' -- "And perhaps I shall take Dorothea with me. The nuns will know how to assuage the grief of an emotional girl." Nicely done. -- 'He had never asked you if you still went to the king's bed. He knew that queens have no choice in such a matter.' I am rooting so hard for you both. -- 'You knew that whatever inn you stop at, she will arrange it so that for the first time in fourteen years, you will spend the night with the man you love.' *flail* -- I really like the setup of the dwarf families. -- Ermengarde. I love it. -- The relationship she has with Wilhelm is wonderful. "Want to be King after I defeat your brother's army?" "Yeah sure sounds good" -- BATTLE GHOST WOLVES I am buying all of Goss's stuff -- 'The three of you standing there, resemble the three Fates.' Synopsis: A meek man enters a spooky theater for an all-night horror movie triple bill. An unscrupulous contractor messes with the wrong family. A single other discovers a bizarre link between her son and an unspeakable Lovecraftian horror. A con artist posing as an outcast from an Amish church gets more than he bargained for in the Indiana forest. And a college professor eager to make money by solving a decades-old cannibal atrocity learns the true meaning of terror in the Great Smoky Mountains.
In this collection of rarely-collected nightmares, you'll find tales of suspense, dread, and madness. It's time to take a journey to Jonathan Janz's Shadow Side. The second of the Night Worms exclusive books. Half the stories in this collection--Witching Hour Theatre, Old Order, and The Clearing of Travis Coble--are all available as individual short stories on Amazon. A Southern Evening had a nice twist to it and Witching Hour Theatre was wonderfully nostalgic, both in a "the community of late-night horror movies" sense and the "eighties slasher flicks" sense, but my favorite in this collection was Throwing Monsters. Quotes/Lines ((spoilers below!)) OLD ORDER -- I've known you for two and a half pages, Horace, and that's two and a half too long. -- "Dinner won't be ready for a while anyway, so you'll have plenty of good daylight to work." Ha. -- "What's that supposed to mean?" "It means you'll be gone by first light, a meal in your belly and your hands as soft as when you came." Call him out, Deek. <3 -- no wait I take it back, Deek, you can die too -- "I know who you are," the old woman said. "What I want to know is why you're in my house." Hi Agnes! ilu -- Agnes seems like such a goodhearted person (though I do hope it's a front so she can eat Horace's brain) -- Um, Belinda? Wha...? -- "Don't you have family?" "Haven't seen 'em in years." Probably because you do things like spy on girls when they're bathing you creep -- Okay what the heck is going on, is this some kind of fertility ritual? -- Please tell me all this expensive jewelry lying around the house is from all the people they've killed. -- "Or perhaps she would remember him fondly, a daring rogue who'd loved her and left without saying goodbye." ....ew. -- That's so cute, that you think they're calling the police instead of firing up the barbecue grill. -- "...Demeter..." Ooooh, harvest-related creepiness/sacrifice? -- Okaaaaaay I did NOT expect this to veer into rape/lobotomization. (I do appreciate the horrifying reveal as to what the 'pigs' are, but I'm not going to be reading this one again. Also, their nakedness 'revealing' that Daniel and Jimmy have vaginas-- why is that there? Why add that detail? Because it reads like a continuation of "look how weird and scary this family is" and ummmm.) On to the next one. Yeah. THE CLEARING OF TRAVIS COBLE -- ...does anyone know you're out here, Myers? -- You're meeting someone who's intelligent and prone to mind games *alone*? Yeahhh, this is gonna end well for you. -- 'Coble was innocent so there was no real danger in talking to him.' PFFFT. -- Uncle, wife, and kids disappeared without a trace? You are going to die. Only question is whether you find the bodies first. -- If this guy gets a hold of your notebook, you are TOAST. (well, I mean, even more than you already are) -- "I'll be going then." Wishful thinking... -- 'Ike was unbuckling his belt.' oh come onnnn A SOUTHERN EVENING -- 'and the goddamned Benbow urchins swarming all over the property like shabbily-dressed gnats' Aren't you a peach. -- 'Why couldn't men be men for a change?' yawwwwwwwn -- ...hang on just a minute is this character's name Mike Pence -- 'God, if those girls had been inside when the whole thing caved, there really would have been problems. Publicity like that could sabotage a project, not to mention harpooning a career.' *calling Melody from Wolf Land down on you* -- Tabitha, stab this condescending douche with a steak knife -- 'so far removed from civilization' Oh good, so the Benbows can kill you without interruption! -- 'His pants had been lowered to his ankles.' If this is another rape ending I am putting this book down. -- Aw, not the kids, they had nothing to do with this. -- 'what *happened* to Molly'? You remain, as always, a jackass. -- Fantastic twist there; I love it. THROWING MONSTERS -- "The monster only eats little boys who throw things when they're not supposed to." This is going to backfire on you SO hard. (I mean, the temptation is there as a parent, I get it, but it's not worth it) -- 'She hadn't meant to plant the idea, but she could see her words working on imagination, conjuring ghastly creatures and generally scaring the shit out of him. "Yes," she pressed on. "The Hitting Monster. The Screaming Monster." This poor kid. -- 'No apology. Eric never apologized. It was a point of pride for him.' Sounds like a real sweetheart. -- Not 'and her child would be *dead*' but 'and she'd get thrown in jail for neglect'? Go get eaten by that basement monster you just created somehow. -- "Were you watching him?" A beat. "Of course I was watching him." "How much did you see him drink?" "I didn't see him drink it." NOT THE TIME just explain so that poor kid can get help! -- 'but a couple of times--okay, a few times--she'd shaken him by the shoulders. If he'd only listen.' ... 'God, she thought. She loved him so much, but why did being a mom have to be so *hard*?' Ohh, hon. You need a therapist or at the very least someone to help watch the kiddo and a friend to talk to. -- Call. The. Cops. ((okay, depending, I mean they'd likely blame her for sleeping with Eric in the first place and therefore 'deserving' this shit.)) SOMEONE get the kid out of here, though. -- no no no NO do NOT go into the basement guard your child's door until the police get there. And CALL TOM. -- Bittersweet ending, it fits really well. And nice last line. WITCHING HOUR THEATRE -- 'He slid his hands into his coat pockets and crossed the street, careful to avoid a beat-up van dragging its muffler behind it like a spilled intestine.' -- A movie theater that shows a horror triple feature every Friday sounds like heaven and I want one -- Sid Haig!! :( -- "The feeling of community of sitting around a giant campfire with a group of old friends, was strong tonight." <3 -- "You could sit with me." "That would be nice." Aw, they're cute. -- 'Getting beaten to a pulp had to be better than feeling like a coward. Maybe.' Heh. -- I understand, Goth girl, that's when I would've left, too. -- You are gonna logic yourself into an early death Wilson. -- 'He had to go back inside because if he didn't, he might as well be dead anyway.' Your'e a good guy. Hope the two of you make it. -- Use one of the metal film reels! Better than nothing! -- Good boy. -- 'Both killers couldn't be dead. It was too soon.' This guy has seen Halloween. -- "You're a sick woman," he said, grinning despite himself.' <3 -- "One movie might be enough for tonight." They're still cute. Synopsis: Grandmaster Award-winner Brian Keene's newest short story collection examines happiness and grief, love and hate, youth and age, and the darkness thriving in the gulf between them. A criminal decides to kill himself by getting healthy. The survivors of the zombie apocalypse find out there's something worse than being dead or living dead. An author's meta-fictional story brings disastrous results. A father discovers that the space between him and his child may be otherworldly. An antediluvian barbarian and a modern-day ex-Amish occultist face off against the same enemy. Your dreams. Your fears. Your hopes. Your regrets. In the hands of Brian Keene, all of them are just... A Little Sorrowed Talk.
I honestly feel weird talking about this one because it's one of the two Night Worms exclusives that I got in the newest subscription box. It's the first book on here that I can't just post a link to so you can grab a copy of your own. However, all the stories were previously published, either on Keene's Patreon or in the following collections: Welcome to the Show Libra Nigrum Scientia Secreta The Rising: Selected Scenes from the End of the World I'm really behind on my Keene TBR, enough so that I haven't gotten into his series work yet. I know that affected my understanding of certain stories, like Through Mirrors Darkly and The Ballad of Koke and Pepsee. The author's notes at the end helped, but overall I enjoyed the standalones more. My favorites: Intersectionality (that ending has turned me into more of a hermit than I already was) The Other (Changeling story!! Loved the characters and the final line) Black Sunrise (eerily beautiful, and contains my favorite passage from the book: "Sunrises come and go, and so do years. You can watch a sunrise in 1988 and another in 2018, and not notice a difference between the two. You may find that in the time between, you went on to become an engineer, or a salesman, or a librarian, or a firefighter, or a mechanic, or a writer. You may be a father to someone, or a husband, or a partner. And you may look back on your life, back over all those sunrises and colors, and think you remember. But you really don't.") Halloween in Cayuga Creek (just plain fun) No Sleep in Brooklyn (this is part of The Rising universe, and I love the glimpse into it. I *am* going to get to the entire series one of these days...) Fear Today, Forgot Tomorrow (heartwrenchingly honest; one of the best meta-fiction pieces I've ever read) SYNOPSIS:
OTHER VOICES, OTHER TOMBS is an anthology packed with unsettling stories from the finest independent authors in the horror genre. This collection runs the gamut of styles, including everything from literary horror to creepypasta. Ania Ahlborn, Kealan Patrick Burke, Michael Wehunt, Mercedes Yardley, and Gemma Files are widely considered some of the best authors working in dark fiction right now. Also included are stories from NoSleep Podcast legends: Gemma Amor, JD McGregor, and Michael Whitehouse. Anthologies are pretty much my favorite thing: I can take a few minutes between Stuff That Needs Done and read a story, and usually discover a new author or three along the way. This one doesn't disappoint (as soon as I saw Kealan Patrick Burke and Ania Ahlborn this thing was on my Kindle within a minute). My favorites from this one are: The Second Hand by Kealan Patrick Burke The Governess by Ania Ahlborn Fly Away, Little Fledgling by Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason Can We Keep Him? by C.W. Briar And, trigger warning for rape in the third story, Urban Moon. It's a very well-written piece, but it's a difficult read emotionally, so be careful with yourselves. Reactions/favorite lines for each: ((spoilers below)) THE SECOND HAND: -- 'I wish I'd have run to him and hugged him. I wish I'd found any reason at all to stay home with my parents where it was always safe.' -- 'Childhood is about raw wounds, the scars the armor of adulthood.' -- The Friday Night Movie Nights is such a sweet tradition; I love this family. And oh god something so horrible is going to happen the foreshadowing is killing me -- 'Because a truth of which I'd only recently become aware was that for all his hatred of his brother, robbie was slowly becoming him. As sure as a hammer will a nail, his brother's fists were driving meanness into him, and I was as afraid of what my friend would become as much as he feared what Dougie already was.' Yeah sure I wasn't using my heart anyway go ahead and stomp on it. -- the girl in the pond is one hell of a creepy visual no wonder this kid is scared. LISTEN TO THAT FRIGHT KIDDO IT IS TRYING TO KEEP YOU ALIVE -- 'I want to believe I'm overreacting but if so, then why hasn't the girl moved since we got here? If you say fear, okay, she's afraid, but tell me, then: why is the water running up her body instead of down? Fear can't alter physics." GYAH -- HAVING FLASHBACKS TO THE THING NOW THE GOVERNESS -- Oh man, I remember the new-mom panic so hard. -- "Pheebs, you need to relax." Way to be helpful to your upset wife, dick. -- 'Sometimes the night vision would cut out during his staring episodes and when it would click back on, Harrison--with his pupils shining like the eyes of an animal caught in oncoming headlights--would be grinning a disconcerting, toothless smile.' so THAT image is going to haunt me forever -- 'It forced her mind into worst-case scenario mode, because what if the baby had spit up and was now choking to death while lying on his back? What if he'd managed to roll onto his stomach and wasn't able to breathe?" Hello there past me how're you doing? -- oh no open closet door this story is going to give me a heart attack I still have not recovered from Stephen King's The Boogeyman -- Feed your husband to the closet thing sweetie, you'll be better off. -- 'Everything was going to be fine.' *bites nails* -- ((I've heard a lot of wonderful things about Ania Ahlborn but this is the first thing of hers I've actually read; she's stellar)) URBAN MOON -- I want Pen's jacket, it sounds over-the-top and perfect. -- Oh Pen. We'll just send that boyfriend to get eaten by lake-monster-girl from KPB's story. -- The bird imagery in this is very fairy-tale. -- Hey no no just call your husband and say you'll be late do NOT leave Pen there alone -- He seems very nice. WHAT'S WRONG WITH HIM. (hopefully nothing, don't let this be That Kind of story) -- Dammit it is -- Oh shit, no. Come on, there's enough bird references and all in here, at least let her morph into a swan and PECK OUT THEIR EYES -- "This isn't right. It doesn't have any feathers." SWEETIE. -- I will kill Tom and his friend and that officer and the ex and the internet mob and... oh, I know it ends on a more hopeful note but it just fills me with so much impotent rage that that almost doesn't matter, sadly. A CIRCLE THAT EVER RETURNETH -- The this-is-only-temporary mantra even as he settles further and further into his new situation is so unsettling. -- "Who the hell is Brad?" eeeeeeeeeek BURY ME IN THE GARDEN -- Poor Ivy. -- 'for the Crone' File under "this is not gonna end well" -- 'Jefferson would not have cowered under the threat of evil. And if I was intending to honor his courage, then neither should I.' Must. Protect. Small. Child. -- 'If someone must be surrounded, it might as well be with books.' Amen, kid. -- Owen's dad needs shot. I notice Mr. It Had To Be Done didn't offer *himself* for sacrifice THIS IS HOW IT GOES -- Well THAT'S one way to start a story thanks I'm traumatized -- I like that she also ends up on things like General Weird Shit threads. :) -- AUGH it's Invasion of the Body Snatchers but WORSE ((also this is a fantastic apocalypse idea)) -- 'For a century or so, the world was small enough not to be afraid of. It got smaller and faster and faster and smaller, 'til you could hold it in your hand. 'Til you could watch it from morning to night without ever having to go anywhere. That's never going to be true again.' -- 'Humans are amazingly adaptable creatures, which seemed like more of a compliment before I realized, post-Split, it was an equally apt descriptor for rats.' COMFORTABLE GODS -- 'this waiting room of a town' is a great phrase. -- This is going to rev up into extreme body horror isn't it -- I don't quite know what's happening yet but this whole atmosphere is unsettling as HELL -- "I remember myself and I don't care what's in this place. I want to find my husband and go away from here." *heart shatters* -- And the extreme body horror is here IN SPADES hiiiiiii nightmares FLY AWAY, LITTLE FLEDGLING -- 'She never got used to caring for children who were terminally ill, it felt so unnatural to watch their little bodies withering away. It sent her mind to a dark place.' oh look it's time to break for the night -- Okay. Next morning. Fortified by hot chocolate, I press on. -- ohhhhh nooooo Charlotte's the same age as my Kaylee I'm gonna go spike my hot chocolate -- "You're closer to hell than heaven." AAAAA -- "The first time, I took care of my own daughter" Then WHY would they ever assign you to a child's case your bosses suck -- "You're my favorite, Nurse Abbie. I want you to be here when I fly away." **sobbing** -- .....oh SHIT FORGET THE BURNING ISLE -- 'It was Jacob. He must have come back to check on me just before it happened.' oh no. ((and I don't know what exactly's going on here but the concept is 11o% terrifying)) -- Good man, McClusky. -- 'even though we're just following orders' Fuck you Blake. -- "I'm a soldier, son. No time for sentiment. I have to look after my own." Repeat previous judgment call. -- GET HIM KIDDO THREE LANES DEEP -- Ugh, these descriptions already have me feeling overheated and claustrophobic. Traffic jams with AC are bad enough; with none? Nooo. -- At least they don't have small children in the car. *Cujo flashbacks* -- LISTEN TO YOUR SISTER LUCAS -- 'She remembers the body in the trunk of the car.' wait WHAT THE SWITCH -- So a horror take on the Parent Trap. I'm here for this. -- "Abigale...honey, I need you to be honest with me. Where is your sister?" ohhhh dear -- 'Secretly, she wondered how much money she would inherit after this shit-show was over.' Shoulda let your granddaughter kill her, sir. -- 'She held the stuffed bear between them and, for the briefest of moments, Abby thought she saw the ratty old thing nod its head.' NOPE. THE RED ROSE -- "Hey, are you having fun?" she asked. "Loads," Ava replied sarcastically. Oh look it's me trying to socialize in high school. -- 'She needed a clear head. Tonight was going to be special for her regardless..." No wait, probably not me because Ava sounds like she's planning to kill people. -- 'Ava smiled, fingering the paring knife in her back pocket.' Yep, gonna kill people. -- okay there Leatherface YIKES -- This is a really interesting take on the killers-working-together trope. -- 'but unlike most dreamers, Ava didn't hesitate to make the necessary sacrifices.' I suppose that's a very, very generous way of looking at it. -- 'Cindy patted Ava's cheek. "That's right, darling. When you're ready to move the bodies, call me." I love how twisted this is. -- 'I've got you too, she thought.' CREEEEEEEPY (perfect) CAN WE KEEP HIM? -- Penny absolutely needs some consequences for that action, but on the other hand it's exactly the kind of prank that little kids who don't think things through play, and the whole 'you're a devil child' thing is a BIT much. -- "What do they protect us from?" Penny had asked mom after school. "Nothing, darling. It's just superstition." "But why would Dad take our star down? What's wrong with good luck?" "Nothing, but an updated exterior is worth more in resale value than good luck." We'll see how concerned you are about resale value when you have a possessed kid -- 'Mom and Dad did not like her exploring the woods on her own, but she did not like being grounded, which made breaking the rules seem fair.' This is such Kid Logic. Now stop investigating weird animal noises alone Penny, this is how people die in horror movies. -- 'For a moment, Penny thought that the cat's jaw was too loose, and that its mouth was opening in directions that it shouldn't, exposing a surprising number of needle teeth. Then she shook her head and got rid of those weird thoughts. The cat was so cute, and she didn't have any reason for the nervous feelings crawling like spiders down her spine.' YES YOU DO oh man I'm going to have nightmares about this, wake up and see one of my own cats, and die of heart failure. -- Penny, sweetheart. Please talk to your mom. -- 'The wind also played with loose boards on the shed, wiggling them like baby teeth ready to come out in a final, bloody yank.' -- Penny is going to need All The Therapy Forever. ALONE IN THE DARK -- 'It wasn't her first rodeo. She'd long since abandoned feeling guilty for driving with whatever illegal substance inside her system.' Please don't kill/hurt anyone else when you inevitably wreck. -- 'Everything was going to be fine. It was only a little buzz. People get away with this shit all the time.' And Iiiiiiiiiiiiiii would love to smack youuuuuuuuuu -- 'made her start to wish she'd just stayed the night at Em's' gee ya think -- OW MY HEART. SYNOPSIS:
Sixteen never-before-published chilling tales that explore every aspect of our darkest holiday, Halloween, co-edited by Ellen Datlow, one of the most successful and respected genre editors, and Lisa Morton, a leading authority on Halloween. In addition to stories about scheming jack-o'-lanterns, vengeful ghosts, otherworldly changelings, disturbingly realistic haunted attractions, masks that cover terrifying faces, murderous urban legends, parties gone bad, cult Halloween movies, and trick or treating in the future, Haunted Nights also offers terrifying and mind-bending explorations of related holidays like All Souls' Day, Dia de los Muertos, and Devil's Night. This collection boasts one hell of a lineup: if you start off with Seanan McGuire and Stephen Graham Jones, you're pretty much guaranteed to be in good hands. And the introduction sets the tone beautifully; I wanted a fireplace in the house just so I could sit in front of it and drink apple cider. None of the stories were misses-- there were a couple that I wish I'd had trigger warnings for, because I'm not the best with death-of-children stories and probably would've steeled myself more for them, but it *was* a collection about Halloween. I knew not all the kids would make it out. Favorites: A Small Taste of the Old Country (nice work with a classic revenge story) All Through the Night (a gutpunch and a half but so well done) A Kingdom of Sugar Skulls and Marigolds (if I *had* to pick, this one's probably my fave of the entire collection) Jack (this take on Stingy Jack is great and I adore the lead) Lost in the Dark (where. is. my. movie.) Notes on each story: ((spoilers below)) WITH GRAVEYARD WEEDS AND WOLFSBANE SEEDS -- title. love. -- 'The kind of money that sees a pretty field and says, "I should build a giant-ass mansion there for no good reason, just because I want to."' -- Oh Tyler, honey. -- 'The end of the world is probably going to begin with those five words. Let's get this party started. Just once, I wish someone would say, "Let's not." Just once.' Seanan's writing is constantly a thing of beauty. -- 'Which at least put her in a category with me and Tyler, so hey. She had good taste.' our sassy narrator is queer Seanan you never let me down -- This ghost is tragic and horrifying. Just the way I like them. :) -- Gee, Tyler, I wonder why Elisa wants nothing to do with you -- "No one owns a word." Oh god, I can smell the Axe body spray coming off this sentence. Heeeere, ghostie ghostie DIRTMOUTH '...I think it's kind of natural to key on the most painful image we can conjure and then just stare at it until there's nothing else in the world.' Hello amazing description of my depression/anxiety -- 'If you're going to ask why I let her in, my first response would be simply that it was cold out there.' This is just such a lovely human moment. It's cold, come in. -- 'When she opened her mouth under her mask, her whole face shifted, and instead of my name, there was only a creak.' AIE -- 'One day of the year, it isn't much. But it's so much more than no days at all.' That's fine, I didn't need my heart anyway. A SMALL TASTE OF THE OLD COUNTRY -- wait a minute Argentina 1948 and one of the guys has an accent he's trying to disguise? Uhhh-huh. -- Now I want homemade bread. ((reviewer's note: I did indeed pause after this story to make some)) -- Okay, so he's not Jewish. There goes my guess. If he turns out to be gay/queer, I will just turn into one giant Joy Emoji because I've seen plenty of stories about Jewish people hunting down Nazis after the war (as well I should) but I'm not sure if I've ever seen one about queer people getting revenge for what was done to them. If anyone has seen any, point me towards?? -- "The damned Russians and British and Americans have taken it all from us. Our hopes and dreams and every single thing of worth that we owned." Oh, wahhh. -- "It means that I am not a Jew or a homosexual or a Pole or a Slav or any of these groups, nor were any of my family, and yet they all died in the camps. ... I am Romany." I am flailing here because a) Romany used instead of the slur, b) remembering and naming all the people the Nazis targeted <3 -- "Some celebrations require fatted calves, but I think fatted pigs will do nicely." DAMN. Well played, Becker. WICK'S END -- I love the setup of this, trading stories in an old bar on Halloween night. -- "Let us venture outside to give our next stories the proper atmosphere" DO NOT. THIS IS HOW YOU DIE. -- Stingy Jack! ((as it turns out, the first of two appearances in this collection!)) THE SEVENTEEN-YEAR ITCH -- "Don't worry about what I said...I can hold It off. I can." I know it's a terrible idea but I want to give him a hug -- "He was doodling faster now, strange, grinning faces with lots of teeth, which he hastily drew over, scribbling heavy, thick lines." eep. -- "If we don't do anything...people will die." "Yeah, well, not me," said Kenneth. Go to hell, Ken. -- "This is really very interesting," said Dr. Orando. Your patient is in pain, you ass. -- 'He'd hated himself for staying away, and he hated himself for coming back and trying to do something, and most of all he hated himself for being too late.' :( A FLICKER OF LIGHT ON DEVIL'S NIGHT -- Why does she keep saying 'the girl' and 'the boy' instead of their names? Do they have names? It's creepy and dehumanizing. -- also the boy is an ass -- though I can understand where it comes from -- 'The appointment is in January, so the doctor must think it's okay to wait three months.' Lady, how long have you lived in America? -- 'He wouldn't make him wait if the boy was really sick, if this self-harm was a symptom of something bad.' LADY. -- "Don't slam-" I don't even bother finishing my sentence as I hurry across the room and reach for the door to pull it away from the wall. Words circle around and back. They've lost all meaning through repetition. I need a new language.' I feel that. -- 'I get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach when the girl talks like this.' I can't imagine her wanting to leave a place where her mom doesn't even refer to her by name. -- 'The girl is mine. I've given up all of my dreams and possessions to keep her happy.' That's a perfectly healthy way to regard your child, yes. -- ...shit. WITCH HAZEL -- Pine Barrens yesssss -- body horror alert AUGH -- Making himself a pot of coffee? Heck, if I'd just seen that I'd be after all the booze forever. -- 'A strange pathogen, blossoming, from the woman's cells- many-armed, like the wild witch-hazel flower. I've never seen the like.' I got such 'Who Goes There?' vibes from those lines. -- There's the bourbon! NOS GALAN GAEAF -- soooo Lance is a creep -- 'She'd bewitched him. That was the only answer. And so burning would be apt. Unlikely, but he could hope.' Easy there Frollo -- 'Home, home, on the double, The tailless black sow shall catch the last.' Creepy; I love it. -- 'That smile said there was more there, something worth saving. The smile was a lie.' DIE HORRIBLY. -- Seanna, darlingheart! I will name a heroine in one of my books after you. -- 'The whole thing was a trap. Seanna had *made* him take her stone, and then she'd lain in wait to catch him.' Your misogyny is tiresome please get eaten now. -- hooray WE'RE NEVER INVITING AMBER AGAIN -- and this one makes a twofer with a punchable narrator -- Ooooh, a crazy old cat lady joke! No wonder you needed your sister-in-law to entertain at the party. -- "Here we go." At least I'd have another story to pass around.' You are such a dick. -- "Did he hit her?" I asked, maybe with too much excitement. Die. -- 'Trying to sound sporty and not mean.' You're failing miserably and I hope your wife leaves your condescending ass and goes for an Epic Road Trip with her sister. -- 'My expression told her everything. All the disgust and contempt I usually took pains to conceal. Cecily read all of this and began to cry.' Oh, honey. Road. Trip. SISTERS -- I love Millie's interpretation of human holidays. -- See? Even demons think clowns are creepy. -- That last LINE. ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT -- The reading your intended's initial in an apple peel is so sweet. -- "If she's a lass, your child, you can sell her to me. I'd treat her well. Put her to work only when she's ready. Would you like that, love?" run -- "What of the cost to me?" he asked. "If your breast milk lands on my piecings?" *rolls guillotine closer* -- 'The doctor said the milk sold in Five Points came from sick cows and looked thick and creamy only with the addition of paint and chalk.' The free market will regulate itself!!! God. -- "I tried." "Ah love, love. We all do." *sobbing* I knew that ending was coming and it still hit hard. A KINGDOM OF SUGAR SKULLS AND MARIGOLDS -- 'You ever seen the lights go green in a woman's eyes when she takes the hand of a man made of bones?' What a sentence. -- I love the descriptions in this. 'Jet-black and electric blue: that's the night sky, shimmering and buzzing like lights of an all-night diner, while agate-dusted shades zoom by, darting through alleys of a crowded universe.' It's just a gorgeous piece. -- The car sounds so unsettling and oddly lovely, perfect for the story. -- 'All I know is, you don't fuck with Abuelita.' ...you absolutely do not. Wow. -- Aww, kids. I wondered if Santi meant that to him. -- ohshit -- Even after he tried to sell him out at the worst possible time, Santi still protected him. I love this kid. -- 'That moment between us, what we did, I didn't expect it, but it felt like it's supposed to.' my heart hurts -- Abuelita!!! THE TURN -- As if walking around at night wasn't already terrifying. -- 'However, part of him was desperate to know.' no tim -- ...did NOT see that coming. JACK -- "I'm ready; I've got this." Um. -- 'But nothing weirds the human animal out like death. Even the steadiest, most down-to-earth hardheads can totally lose their compos mentis where death is concerned. And that's just the living. The dead are worse.' If that doesn't hook you I don't know what will. -- the concept of charm/apps is great -- The worldbuilding is so fun and I would not be disappointed to find out this is part of a series. *crossed fingers* LOST IN THE DARK -- 'spent fifteen minutes of one class arguing the merits of The Lost Boys' Lost Boys has all the merits -- The 'woman in the mine' story is great. I just ordered Langan's The Fisherman, and from this story so far, I think I'll really enjoy it. -- Isabelle, your professor is an idiot; your documentary idea would be amazing. -- "After filming the mine's exterior, we walked into it." Edie waits a beat, then says "And...?" "And we came out again," Sarah says. "Eventually." I adore all the 'oh shit something's coming' eerieness in that last line. -- ugh why isn't this actually a movie I want to watch it. -- CLOSE THE CONNECTION YOU GUYS why are you even messing with the world's creepiest Ouija board if you haven't done your research -- "Is that Isabelle?" Chad asks. "Who else would it be?" Kristi says Kristi. Nooo, Kristi. -- oh no there's only about three pages left in this story I want a novel THE FIRST LUNAR HALLOWEEN -- "What if you're wrong?" Susan said, "Nobody is wrong. This is totally safe, so you just need to enjoy your first Halloween!" As epitaphs go, it's not bad. -- 'Altogether, the trip should take an hour. Everyone had enough air for three hours.' Well, whatever's about to go wrong, at least it's not a Titanic situation. -- 'Susan felt dread, knowing with a weird certainty that the parallel grooves were from Jonathan's boots as he had been dragged.' Yeek. -- STOP SPLITTING UP oh no they don't know the rules all knowledge from horror movies has been lost -- Jonathan you idiot. |
A WORLD WITH A BLUER SUNMy reviews are set up a little like live-tweets: I write down lines I like/impressions as I read, and then transcribe. Reviews will contain spoilers, but I'll give a warning before they start. Archives
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